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Obama`s IT Reality: Will It Be Change, or Just Hope?By Faisal Hoque Print
The technology challenges President-Elect Barack Obama faces are similar to the ones CEOs grapple with every day. But they also shine a new light on critical infrastructure, security and healthcare issues. How will he handle them?
When President-elect Barack Obama asked the Secret Service to find a secure way for him to continue using his Blackberry, it became clear that he is of the generation that likes the power of personal technology.
And it's clear he has his own technology agenda for the nation, notably in making government transparent, involving citizens in its functioning, and in educating our children. Furthermore, he's proposed the appointment of a national chief technology officer to make these reality.
The real reality is that he will face the same technology issues as any corporate CEO, only magnified by the sheer scope of the challenges, the often life-or-death nature of the tasks at hand, and the special difficulties of a political environment.
As is true for any organization, making good things happen with technology in government is primarily a management challenge, not a technological one. Technology investment must flow from a clearly articulated strategy, and technology must be deployed by and into organizational structures that are designed to make holistic decisions about it and to take full advantage of it.
This is the heavy lifting. Drawing up wish-lists is the easy part. Obama emphasizes open government and education, but there is no shortage of national needs that technology can address:
• The U.S. population grew nearly 20 percent between 1982 and 2001, but traffic increased 236 percent. Roadside sensors, radio frequency tags and global positioning systems can fit in where there is no room for more roads. A smart system in Stockholm has resulted in 22 percent less traffic and a 40-percent drop in emissions. London, Brisbane and Singapore are taking advantage of this technology.
• Intelligent oilfield technology can increase both pump performance and well productivity in a business where only 20 to 30 percent of the reservoir is actually extracted and produced into some form of energy. Meantime, we lose between 40 and 70 percent of our electrical energy due to "dumb" electric grids.
• Electronic health records and networking could eventually save $81 billion annually, by one estimate. Computerized Physician Order Entry—one component of EHR—increases patient safety by listing instructions for physicians to follow when they prescribe drugs to patients. It's thought that CPOE could eliminate 200,000 adverse drug events and save about $1 billion per year if installed in all hospitals.
The Government Accountability Office has its own list of urgent technology priorities for the new administration:
• Preparing for and carrying out the 2010 Census
• Crucial large-scale modernization efforts at the Department of Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Internal Revenue Service
• Establishing information-sharing mechanisms to improve homeland security
• Protecting the federal government's information systems and the nation's critical infrastructures
I have no doubt that technology, particularly information technology, can do much more to address the problems we face. After all, the Wall Street trading room, the doctor's office and the anti-terrorism command center are, in essence, information markets. The Social Security Administration, the IRS and the Federal Reserve Board are simply sifters of information.
These agencies deal in vital information, and yet they are little better than many other organizations in getting their information technology functioning well. It's management, pure and simple.
According to the Government Accountability Office, the federal government plans to spend about $70 billion on IT projects during fiscal year 2008. Studying 778 major IT projects, which account for the bulk of the $70 billion, the GAO estimates that about half have been "rebaselined," i.e., undergone changes in cost, schedule and performance goals. For example, the U.S. Coast Guard's Rescue 21 system is projected to experience cost increases of 184 percent and schedule delays of five years after rebaselining. Of the altered projects, half have been rebaselined at least twice. While often legitimate, rebaselining can be used to mask cost overruns and schedule delays.
These projects aren't "nice to have"—they are integral to the departments' missions. And the problem is plain and simple, according to the GAO: "Our analysis shows that agencies do not have comprehensive rebaselining policies." It's the management, not the technology.
The federal government has always played a major role in the nation's technology evolution. In the years after World War II this role has included, perhaps most visibly, the development of the Internet, and somewhat less well-known, huge investments in hardware and software. The National Resource Council says:
The United States' current leadership in high technology draws from substantial federal investments starting in the postwar period in the nation's science and technology infrastructure. Key elements of this policy have included building a system of research universities and attracting foreign talent though scholarships and by providing academic freedoms and research facilities not available elsewhere. This institutional capital has to be upgraded and adapted to new needs and opportunities if the United States is to maintain its leadership as a knowledge-based economy.
Indeed, with all eyes on the economy today, it is important to understand the critical role technology plays in our well-being. The Council says:
The mechanism underlying the resurgence of U.S. economic growth has now come into clear focus. The surge was generated by the accelerating decline of IT prices, propelled by a shift in the semiconductor product cycle from 3 years to 2 in 1995. The price decline set off an investment boom that achieved its peak during the last half of the 1990s and has now recovered much of the momentum lost during the 2001 recession.
Investment in computers has been the predominant impetus to faster growth, but communications equipment and software investments have also made important contributions.
Those who govern at the federal level over the next five years will inherit the policy responsibilities for this success story: tax and other incentives that make this country attractive for technology manufacturing and research; policies that encourage young people to enter technology fields; private/government R&D partnerships that make possible what corporations can't afford to do alone; and trade agreements with other nations.
The things that bother us the most—terrorism, the economy, health care, even just a better commute—have technological solutions. We expect the government to come up with them. Our politicians will succeed or fail largely on how well they manage the technology.
Faisal Hoque is chairman and CEO of BTM Corporation and author of a forthcoming book, The Convergence Scorecard, to be published by the Harvard Business Press. BTM innovates business models and enhances financial performance by converging business and technology with its unique products and intellectual property.
© 2008 Faisal Hoque
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- June 4, 2013 at 10:27 AM

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Here are four brief articles developing a necessary, out-of-the-ordinary (would I offer you anything less? :)) context to contemplate while you're out and about enjoying the freshness of nature today, the beginning of spring 2012.
First, from the online Guitar World Magazine, news that the famed guitarist for Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page, is today marketing six never-officially-released tracks, ominously titled: Lucifer Rising and other sound tracks." Page created the recordings for Kenneth Anger's 1972 film, Lucifer Rising, co-starring (uncredited) another acclaimed British musician Marianne Faithfull, once the lovely girlfriend of a much younger (but not so faithful) Mick Jagger.
Second, the British Guardian published a world map graphically clarifying the multitude of individual locations of the ever-spreading Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests around our globe. Their map is from four months ago during the first wave of OWS protests, but as you'll see from the third article, today hearkens the beginning of a second wave of more earnest pandemonium from the movement, aimed at coinciding with the American presidential election, now in full swing, as well as with the rapidly decaying world economy.
Compare the OWS's recent global number of "951 cities in 82 countries" to the year 2000, global "ecclesial network of 1,920 dioceses comprising 211,156 parishes; and in some 3,000 bishops and 483,488 priests who tend those dioceses and parishes" described in my recent post [ Georeligious Power: A Paris Revolution. A Polish Revolution. An American Revolution? ]. Add to that the ongoing jousting between President Obama and Pope Benedict XVI over freedom of religion [ Cardinal Takes Over for Bishop and Advances on King ], and you have a whole other front of street fighting.
On a side note, check out the legendary British author J. G. Ballard's posthumous final novel (published 2003 in England, 2011 in America), Millenium People, for a great fictional (or not) account of street fighting, which Mick Jagger so passionately anthemized in a Rolling Stones song. Here, Ballard describes a more modern, and chilling, class-warfare in English streets, which in fact has since begun its global contagion, predominantly from the OWS germ.
From Jagger's "Street Fighting Man" to Ballard's Millenium People to today's OWS — "Moves Like Jagger," indeed!
Third, a selection from TheBlaze.com detailing Frances Fox Piven's comments of her speech from eleven days ago (with links to primary-source audio) and forewarning, on behalf of the OWS, "This Spring, We'll See Action."
As a corollary to the Frances Fox Piven article, the very left-of-center, but also very important publication for understanding the far left, The Nation, has their entire April 2, 2012 issue devoted to the "call-to-arms" of "Occupy Spring." The issue contains the thoughts of fourteen influential progressive activists, including Frances Fox Piven and Michael Moore, on the forward strategy that the OWS movement should take beginning today, this first day of spring.
I encourage all who have interest to dig much deeper into the thought processes of those who are orchestrating the coming OWS street revolutions to check this issue out online at [ http://www.thenation.com/issue/april-2-2012 ]. Also in the issue: a slide show of "The Fifty Most Influential Progressives of the Twentieth Century" [ http://www.thenation.com/slideshow/154631/slide-show-fifty-most-influential-progressives-twentieth-century ] and "'Nation Readers' Most Influencial Progressives of the Twentieth Century" [ http://www.thenation.com/slideshow/155750/slide-show-nation-readers-most-influential-progressives-twentieth-century ].
My own thought process operates, I imagine, as far from those of the above progressive icons as could be possible. I have no problem, however, referencing this virtual home-school graduate class on the history of modern progressive thought and how it's being thrust upon our world today. I thoroughly believe that we should all understand our enemies, from their own words, in order to live with them side-by-side — and not wish them dead. Free speech, after all, is free to all or free to none.
Finally, to balance the political spectrum, a brief article from the Kansas City Star reporting on GOP caucus elections held in Missouri three days ago. The elections spun more-than-slightly out of control, revealing the simmering rage from Ron Paul's supporters over how the center-right GOP (primarily party-supporters of Romney and Santorum) are pulling every devilish trick they can (in this case through ballot-counting mayhem) to marginalize Paul's clear and present power among the liberty-conscious right as well as among the younger Democrats, all of whom have had it with President Obama and his administration.
If none of the GOP candidates reach the required delegates to be nominated (becoming more-and-more likely as each state ballot-count passes), then all hell will break lose at the ensuing Republican brokered convention in which all bets are off for the nomination.
Anger is brewing from the grassroots to the pinnacles of power, from the far left to the far right and most points in-between, in America and worldwide, and it all ramps up today.
If you toss in the ambiguous intentions of the Muslim Brotherhood and their growing influence throughout the world, including the United States [see the following blogs: 1 of 2: Muslim Brotherhood Looks West to 3.2 Billion Dollar IMF Loan (2.17.2012) and 2 of 2: Muslim Brotherhood Looks Away from West to Governance by Sharia Law (2.22.2012) ], then the mix could prove toxic at many levels of global society. Oops! Did I forget to mention the end of the Mayan calendar later this year? 🙂
Lucifer Rising and other sound tracks? God only knows, although we can all agree that this brew won't taste anywhere similar to a well-crafted, American spring ale.
Have a sincerely pleasant day with the rising clarity and strength that this awareness can awaken within each of us. –SB
1. Guitar World
Jimmy Page to Release 'Lucifer Rising and Other Soundtracks' This Month
Posted 03/16/2012 at 11:36am | by Josh Hart
[ http://www.guitarworld.com/jimmy-page-release-lucifer-rising-and-other-soundtracks-month ]
Jimmy Page has just announced the release of Lucifer Rising and Other Sound Tracks for March 20, a date specifically chosen for its connection to the spring equinox.
This marks the first time ever that these tracks have been officially released. (Songs were apparently released in 1987, although the legality of that release is very much in question.)
"The title music, along with other musical pieces recorded at my home studio in the early Seventies, have been revisited, remixed and released for the first time," Page said. "This is a musical diary of avant-garde compositions and experiments, one of which was to appear on the film Lucifer Rising [ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066019/ ]. The collection has been exhumed and is now ready for public release."
–Photo by TRACKS LTD courtesy of Led Zeppelin: Good Times, Bad Times (Abrams Books (from online Rolling Stone).
The album will be available a standard edition on heavyweight vinyl, as well as deluxe and signed deluxe editions.
You can get more information, as well as register for the deluxe pre-orders, at jimmypage.com.
Page was commissioned to write a soundtrack for Kenneth Anger's 1972 film Lucifer Rising, which went unused in the final version of the film. Page makes a cameo in the movie, staring at a portrait of Aleister Crowley while holding an Egyptian stele.
Lucifer Rising and Other Sound Tracks
Side One
1) Lucifer Rising – Main Track
Side Two
1) Incubus
2) Damask
3) Unharmonics
4) Damask – Ambient
5) Lucifer Rising – Percussive Return
2. The Guardian
Occupy protests around the world: full list visualised
The Occupy protests have spread from Wall Street to London to Bogota. See the full list – and help us add more.
"951 cities in 82 countries" has become the standard definition of the scale of the Occupy protests around the world this weekend, following on from the Occupy Wall Street and Madrid demonstrations that have shaped public debate in the past month. . . .
So, we have started listing all the events we can find verified news reports for. There's not 951 yet, but we do have most of the major ones. You can see them mapped here: [ http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2011/oct/18/occupy-protests-map-world ]
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 06.45 EST on Monday 14 November 2011. It was last modified at 10.03 EST on Monday 14 November 2011. It was first published at 14.06 EDT on Monday 17 October 2011.
3. The Blaze
US: 'This Spring, We'll See Action': Piven Issues Dark Prediction on Occupy Wall Street
- Posted on March 9, 2012 at 5:28am by Madeleine Morgenstern
[ http://www.theblaze.com/stories/fri-a-m-this-spring-well-see-action-piven-issues-dark-prediction-on-occupy-wall-street/ ]
[ Please note that all bold highlighting is original to the following article.] –SB
According to Frances Fox Piven:
- The Occupy Wall Street movement is entering the phase where it "makes trouble."
- "We'll see action against the banks, against the corporations."
- Different forms of protests that will engage many people.
- Occupy was helped by "sympathetic" press coverage.
Leftist professor and activist Frances Fox Piven last week predicted the Occupy Wall Street movement is entering the phase where it "makes trouble" and will soon be taking action against banks and other institutions.
"It may well be that the Occupy movement is now in its second phase, in the phase where it makes trouble, in the phase where it threatens to shut down institutions," Piven said. "The Occupy movement has moved into the neighborhoods of our cities, it has moved into the schools…. This spring, we'll see action against the banks, against the corporations."
She added, "It is going to be a spring with lots of protests that take different forms and engage lots of people."
Piven made her comments during a lecture to a group of students at the University of Connecticut last Friday. She touched on the genesis of the Occupy movement, which she said was particularly a result of the financial crisis, which "exposed those in charge of the economy as illegitimate."
"The people who were sitting on top of the world, the top-tenth of the top 1 percent, were guilty. They were guilty of thievery, of chicanery," Piven said.
* Calling Occupy Wall Street "a brilliant tactical innovation," Piven dismissed the notion that local authorities actually worried about the sanitary conditions of the encampments, saying their major concern was how easily the "99 percent" theme caught on — helped by sympathetic press coverage.
"The press began to cover them, and as the press began to cover them, the press became more sympathetic. The slogan, 'we are the 99 percent, they are the 1 percent,' is so clear, how can you say they have no demands?" she said. "Then the polls started to show that the message was resonating with a lot of Americans. And as that happened, the local authorities became worried. All of a sudden, it was very dangerous to have people sleeping overnight."
* Taking questions from students, Piven was asked how lawmakers can pass laws for "the 99 percent" without being viewed as socialist.
"Well, we'll call them democratic, or maybe we'll call them anarchists," Piven replied before adding to audience laughter: "No, you can't call a law an anarchist law."
She continued, "I know one poll that shows something like half of the youngest age group polled, probably 15 to 25, saw no problems with socialism. I myself am not a socialist, but, you know, who knows what that is? I want to try to reform American capitalism to the extent that it can be reformed, and then we'll see."
* Questioned about the Tea Party, Piven resurrected one of her old refrains that the movement is racist.
"The Tea Party has a chant at its rallies. The chant is 'Take it back! Take it back! Take it back!' And you know who they want to take it back from? They want to take it back from African Americans, immigrants. They can't stand the idea, they've popularized the idea that our African American president is a Muslim," she said.
* Piven also espoused her views on the charter school versus public school debate, saying in charter schools, "poorer children…don't get the same kind of educational services."
"If we take the funds that are designated to public education and we give them to for-profit entrepreneurs they're going to behave in an entrepreneurial way," she said, meaning teachers will "select out the kids who will do best."
* Asked about the "hostile" business environment in the U.S., another student questioned what is stopping businesses from picking up and relocating due to over-regulation.
"You know, these businesses need government, they rely on government," Piven replied. "There may come a time when this new super structure of international agencies like the IMF, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the European Union is so highly developed they can actually function to provide the safeguards, the credibility, the infrastructure, the legal framework that business requires. They haven't yet so I would say let's tame business, fence them in, while it can be tamed."
* Piven gave her talk as part of a University of Connecticut political science forum. Joseph Gasser, president of the University of Connecticut College Republicans, told The Blaze that while Piven has "every right to voice her collectivist opinions," he believes it was "a mistake" to give a platform to someone with "a demonstrable misunderstanding of economics and a vicious contempt for those who have made themselves successful.
Student members from both the College Republicans and the University of Connecticut Young Americans for Liberty attended the event.
"Hosting her sends the message to students, faculty and donors to the university that this is an environment where covetousness, envy and ill will are encouraged at the expense of industriousness, hard work and ingenuity," Gasser said.
4. The Kansas CityStar /Midwest Democracy
Missouri caucuses marked by contention, with no clear victor yet
March 20 DAVE HELLING The Kansas City Star
[ http://midwestdemocracy.com/articles/missouri-caucuses-marked-by-contention-with-no-clear-victor-yet/ ]
Liberty, Mo.: Missouri Republicans met in more than 100 counties Saturday to begin picking their presidential nominee at party caucuses marked in some places by crowded rooms, loud disagreements — and no clear victor.
Organizers shut down one of the largest GOP caucuses, in St. Charles County, because of bitter disputes between supporters of Rep. Ron Paul and attendees supporting other presidential hopefuls. Confusion and contention also marred several other crowded Republican gatherings, The Associated Press reported.
In Clay County, arguments between Paul supporters and others became so intense that the caucus chairman threatened to have voters removed by force.
Backers of the Texas congressman said they were upset their views weren't being heard.
"We're just a little frustrated because caucuses are supposed to be run by a very strict set of rules," said Paul supporter John Findlay. "We raised a number of points of order, points of information, points of parliamentary inquiry, many of which have been ignored."
But county caucus chairman Ben Wierzbicki said all caucus goers had been treated fairly.
"Certain people have made it very difficult on most of the people who are involved in this caucus," he said. "It might be a little crazy, but that's part of it."
After a three-hour-plus session, Clay County caucus goers eventually elected delegate slates from both the 5th and 6th congressional districts whose members were officially uncommitted to any specific presidential candidate. Attendees also firmly rejected an effort to more closely align the party platform with Paul's views.
Unlike neighboring Kansas, which caucused March 10, Missouri Republicans did not cast direct ballots for any presidential candidate Saturday. Instead, delegates picked Saturday will eventually choose 49 of the state's 52 national GOP convention delegates at district conventions in April and the state convention in June.
Not every county held a caucus Saturday. Republicans in Jackson County and the city of St. Louis postponed their caucuses until March 24 because of St. Patrick's Day events.
Because of the confusing process, no presidential candidate is expected to get an immediate political boost from Saturday's caucuses.
"Like" a Rolling Stone: Huey, Dewey, Louie and the New Voice of Youth – Dr. Ron Paul , Dr. Ron Paul on a Heartland Campus Near You: Danger, Danger Will Robinson! and Recent Misconceptions About Ron Paul .
Revolution du Jour and Another Slice of American Pie and
Malcolm X's "The Ballot or the Bullet"
(tnks tw)


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#1 'Frankencamera': A Giant Leap For Digital Photos?
- Join Date
- Aug 2005
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'Frankencamera': A Giant Leap For Digital Photos?
It's big. It's ugly. And it's made from recycled parts, at least for now. It's called the "Frankencamera" — and it might someday change the way you take pictures.
Computer scientists at Stanford University say the new camera works something like an iPhone: It can be altered in nearly infinite ways, depending on the applications downloaded to it.
Even the best digital camera on the market today has lots of limitations, the professor behind the prototype, Marc Levoy, tells NPR's Guy Raz.
Say you want to take a photo of your child playing with a new toy in a dark room, near a bright window. It's tough to do now because of the variations in lighting within that single frame. If Junior's face is visible and bright, the tree and the sky through the window will be bleached out. If the scene outside comes out just right, Junior will be so underexposed you won't be able to see the glee on his face.
Not so with the Frankencamera, says Levoy. For the prototype, he and his colleagues developed a program that instructs the camera to take two rapid shots if a frame has both dark and light parts. One shot exposes correctly for the dark; one shot exposes correctly for the light. The program then merges the two images into one, taking the best parts from each.
And what if a camera could do the same thing for focus — take three shots, focusing on different things in each frame, and merge them into one crystal-clear shot?
According to Levoy, these are just a couple of examples of how programmers could change the future of photography with the Frankencamera. The key is that the camera uses a Linux operating system. All digital cameras are essentially minicomputers, says Levoy, and they can be modified a bit by the photographer. But the manufacturer determines what features are available. Linux is "open source," which means the camera owner can change everything about the electronic guts.
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Canada's most famous astronaut is now a professionally-recognized photographer.
Chris Hadfield has been awarded an honorary Service of Photographic Arts designation by the Professional Photographers of Canada for his shots from space, a vantage point few photographers will ever see, said Jillian Chateauneuf, a PPOC chairwoman, in a news release .
"PPOC members thoroughly enjoyed watching his images as they arrived from space," she said. "Those images increased our awareness of the beauty of our planet. It was truly a photographer's delight."
Once Hadfield had returned to Earth, members of the PPOC began a campaign to honour his work, said Chateauneuf.
Hadfield said he was honoured by the designation, bestowed in recognition of contributions made to photography in Canada.
"I had the incredible honour and privilege of the best tripod that was ever built and that is the International Space Station about 1.2 million feet above the world, with a constantly, endlessly unrolling change of colour and texture and light perpetually underneath me. It was every photographer's dream," he said in the release.
"If I have any sort of merit in accepting this award, it is on behalf of all of the photographic instructors that taught me, my dad who bought me my first little 110 instamatic camera, but more importantly the Canadian Space Agency and NASA who put all that equipment up there and who gave me the opportunity to point the lens and try and capture the magic that is our world."
Main Picture: Chris Hadfield has been awarded an honorary Service of Photographic Arts designation by the Professional Photographers of Canada for his shots from space, like this one of Vancouver.
Photograph by: Chris Hadfield , NASA
Source: Vancouver Sun


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Author: colter
This Blog Is Closed.
So it's not just me. When your favorite blogger says the blog is dead, at least you know you're not alone.
For the purposes of documentation for the year 2013, I should say that this year has been probably the best year of my life, so it comes as something of a surprise that it's the least documented year on this blog. Most importantly, I've gotten married. We had a lovely wedding party (pictures coming soon). We also went on a delightful honeymoon road trip.
Once upon a time I was quoted as saying "You have to have a life in the first place, in order to blog about it." A caveat to this, I've discovered, is that once life accelerates, there simply isn't much time to stop and document it. And life is about to accelerate even more.
Life Moves Pretty Fast
So a lot has happened. And every time I tell myself I'm going to sit down and update the blog to recap life events for my own future reference (which is basically the entire purpose of this blog, one that Facebook Timeline seems bent on demolishing), I find myself actively avoiding writing of any kind. Maybe it's a passing phase, what with all the activity around here (Girlfriend moving in! Band rehearsals! Losing my job! Getting a new one!), but I find myself documenting my life less with words and more with photos (thanks, Instagram). I also find myself wondering about things less, and that was a primary reason for blogging in the beginning. It's entirely possible that I've just figured most things out, I suppose. Anyway, here are the highlights of the last 10 months:
- I met a nice Colombian girl back in July and asked her to move in recently.
- We went on road trips to Arkansas and back, plus Memphis and New Orleans.
- We went to Colombia.
- I lost my job at American Express and got a new one at American Express. So far it seems like easier work, as I'm now managing a small number of large projects rather than a large number of small projects.
- I was featured on Kottke.org, probably my favorite website in the world.
- I joined my friend Marty's band.
- I did a reader's theatre at Hendrix College in September. Basically a staged table read, but it's the only acting I get to do these days. I played a New Jersey newspaper editor.
I have a few other bits of writing I need to finish up so hopefully the gap between blog entries won't be quite so massive as the previous one.
The Shaggs
I wrote my first piece for PopMatters.com, and it's about The Shaggs.
Adventures in Jury Duty
No one seems to like jury duty. It interrupts peoples' work schedules, certainly, but there seems to be more to it than that – the drudgery of dealing with randomly assembled people, the formal and vaguely threatening institutional setting, the paperwork, the bureaucracy. I don't know if these things don't bother me much because I'm generally fascinated by novel societal experiences or because my dad was a judge.
I was summoned to the Brooklyn Supreme Court building last Thursday at 8:30 a.m. As I exited the subway station, I was asked for directions by a guy looking for 320 Jay Street, my very same destination, so we walked together toward the courthouse. He was another prospective juror, a sharp-dressed black dude in a thick cream-colored sweater and Timberlands, named David. We exchanged ideas for getting exempted from jury service and generally commiserated as we entered the building and went through security.
We entered a large room on the second floor filled with rows of seats like pews but made of vinyl. We watched a spectacularly low-budget orientation video featuring historical re-enactments of medieval justice: a group of people in robes and rags tie up an accused person and toss him into a river to see if he floats. Then Ed Bradley from 60 Minutes circa 1992 came on and welcomed us to the world of the US justice system. Perry Mason clips were shown, after which Diane Sawyer appeared, explaining that courtrooms are seldom the high-drama arenas that we see in movies and on television.
The combination of the institutional setting and the irresistibly mockable video meant that I naturally reverted by small degrees to my smartass high school self. After the video, David and I joked around with a guy next to us (I didn't get his name so I'll just call him DJ Premier because he looked a lot like DJ Premier) about what might disqualify us: language difficulties, backward caps (Premier had his cocked to the side), hoodies, the sincere principles of our Amish-Rastafarian religious beliefs (Premier later remarked that it might be troublesome that his laptop smelled like weed).
The jury room was a terrific cross-section of New York City. Every archetype was present: Old Hasidic Jewish guy? Check. Three-piece suit dude? Check. Confused Asian and Caribbean ladies who didn't understand much of what was being said? Check. Starbucks laptop guy doing graphic design work? Check. Rotund ladies with impeccable nails and hair of questionable authenticity? Check.
After a Cheese Danish and terrible coffee, I heard my name called, along with David's, so we both went to the next room for a roll-call before heading up to the 19th floor along with our group of about 30 or so people.
The 19th floor had a nice view, so David and I stood by the window and talked. He's 39, with a wife and four boys in Brownsville, and he works as a property manager in Queens. Originally from the island of Dominica in the Virgin Islands, he moved to New York when he was 10. We talked about moving from a rural area to the big city, the state of NY public schools, the real estate market, and raising kids in the city. Brownsville, for those who don't know, is one of the rougher parts of Brooklyn, and David mentioned a local kid was recently shot in a domestic dispute. So he's looking into moving the family elsewhere.
We were all called into the courtroom for an initial introduction to the attorneys and the case. The defendant was accused of assault and robbery of a livery cab driver at knifepoint. The briefing was short, as it was already 12:45, so we were dismissed for lunch. David and I went to a pizza place, where we talked about music, in particular the decline of popular hip-hop. He spoke a little bit about New York City in 1982 though the crack era of the late 80s/early 90s, and how his father disapproved of rap music, and how much fun hip-hop used to be then compared to today. He's the disapproving father these days, as the genre has descended into empty materialism. David didn't get to see many shows in the 80s, but when I mentioned that I had been to Brownsville last summer to see Special Ed play Summerstage, he said that he once went to a car auction with Special Ed back in the day!
Back at the courthouse, we sat around listening to the dude with the loud earbuds (check!) leaking out tunes by Sade and Journey before we were all called back into the courtroom. Twenty folks were chosen for the initial round of inquiry; David was chosen but I was not. Each one was asked their name, job, living arrangement, neighborhood, criminal history ("have you or anyone close to you been the victim of a crime?"), and whether or not they could be impartial to the case, irrespective of any personal connections to crimes, livery cab drivers, or the neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant where the alleged crime took place. It felt something like an AA meeting – getting to know strangers and their personal lives.
The rest of us were dismissed and later told that we would not be needed. We returned to the main jury room on the second floor. The time was around 4 p.m., so everyone in the room was told they could leave. Our obligation was over, and we would not be eligible for summons for another 6 years.
While most folks were all but celebrating their dismissal, I have to say I was kind of looking forward to the job. I was also bummed out by the fact that I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to David (and he doesn't seem to be on Facebook). Looks like I'll never know how it turned out for the knife-wielding suspect from Bed-Stuy. It's probably just as well. Dude looked so guilty.
Dalton Trumbo, the screenwriter of such varied films as Roman Holiday, Spartacus, and Johnny Got His Gun, was one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of writers and directors blacklisted in 1947 for refusing to testify at the McCarthy hearings. I recently watched a documentary about him, Trumbo, which is available on Netflix streaming. When I heard the following passage on why he refused to name names in McCarthy's witch hunt, I knew I had to track down a transcript:
I've delivered newspapers, reported for newspapers, peddled vegetables, clerked in stores, waited on tables, washed automobiles, picked fruit, hosed down infected cadavers, shoveled sugar beets, iced refrigerator cars, laid rails with a section gang, and served an eight-year hitch on the night shift of a large industrial plant.
I've looked at many American faces. I've seen them as flak burst around them nine thousand feet over Japan; in a slit trench on Okinawa watching the night sky to see where the next bomb would fall; in an assault boat as they moved toward a beach that tossed more violently than the surf through which they rode.
I've counseled with a paroled prostitute on how she might escape the clutches of a policeman who had caught her and was stealing half her earnings and sending his friends to her with courtesy cards that entitled them to take her without pay. I've also counseled with Secretary of the Air Force Tom Finletter on how the secretary of state might better explain his policies to a perplexed people. I've been asked by Louis B. Mayer why I had no religion, and by a ranking member of the State Department how I could bring myself to work with "all those Hollywood Jews."
I've seen American faces in a miners' union hall in Duluth on a night when the wind off the lake blew the snow so killingly and so deep that cars couldn't be used and everybody walked to the meeting. I've seen their faces in the banquet room of a New York hotel when the American Booksellers' Association gave me a National Book Award; and I've seen them again in a jury box as each of them twice said, "Guilty as charged," and one of them wept as she said it.
I've been stripped by Americans and paraded naked with them and before them and obediently bent over on command to present my anus for contraband clearance. I've lived with and trusted and been trusted by car thieves and abortionists and moonshiners and embezzlers and burglars and Jehovah's Witnesses and Quakers.
I've stood on a gray day in the Fifth Marine Division Cemetery on Iwo Jima and looked off at the graves of 2,198 Americans. In the center of all those graves on a slim white pole on a concrete pedestal flew the American flag. And I swear it was not the flag of informers. And if I could take a census of all the American faces I have seen and of all the dead whose graves I have looked on, if I could ask them one simple question: "Would you like a man who told on his friend?" – there would not be one among them who would answer, "Yes."
But, show me the man who informs on friends who have harmed no one, and who thereafter earns money he could not have earned before, and I will show you not a decent citizen, not a patriot, but a miserable scoundrel who will, if new pressures arise and the price is right, betray not just his friends but his country itself.
Sometimes Your Instincts Are Wrong
My birthday falls on St. Patrick's Day. This would be fantastic if I were the sort of person who enjoys the many drunken activities that police officers file under the category of "disorderly conduct." Maybe I'm just getting old, but St. Patrick's Day seems to get less fun each year as more and more people have taken it as an excuse for binge drinking. It feels like one big frat party now. Ordinarily I'm insulated from the holiday by my annual trips to South by Southwest, where everyone is too busy listening to bands to get mercilessly hammered, or even notice that March 17th is a holiday.
So it was with some reluctance that I went downtown to Little Rock's River Market (epicenter of public drinking) on St. Patrick's Day to see my old college chum Hayes Carll play a show at Rev Room. It was a good show as usual, but I was really tired after a long day (friend's wedding at which I was an usher/golf cart driver and then cousin's BBQ afterward) so I left a little early. Walking back toward the Clinton Library where I had parked my rental car, I came up behind a girl having some trouble walking. She would veer into the wall of the Courtyard Hotel and rebound. I passed her, and I was about to round the last corner to the Clinton Library when I looked back and saw her attempting to get into her car. Fortunately she had become temporarily trapped in the game of drop keys-pick up-keys-drop-phone-pick-up-phone-drop keys, which gave me the time to ask myself if I was going to let this happen. Was I going to walk away? My instincts said to let her fate play itself out by her actions, but after 36 years on this Earth, I've discovered that my first instincts are generally wrong.
So I talked to her. I asked her if she needed help or if she had anyone she could call for a ride. She said she had tried to call people but no one was picking up, and her brother had abandoned her about an hour before; she had no idea where he was and it was likely that he was even further gone than she was. Neither of us knew any cab phone numbers or anything, so I offered her a ride home.
Naturally, she lived in Conway (a half-hour drive for you non-Arkansans). To make her feel better about being driven home by a total stranger, I told her I was staying with my sister in Vilonia, so it wouldn't be too far out of my way (my sister lives Jacksonville). I also said not to worry about the degree of the favor – I told her about my birthday and how I was accustomed to the services that St. Patrick's Day often requires. So I helped her to my car and off we went.
I'll leave out her name, but she was a 27-year-old single mother of a 5-year-old with a "douchebag" ex living in Mayflower. She had been working at a local healthcare facility but couldn't continue there because she'd have had to work some night shifts. This would be impossible for her, as her uncooperative ex would not take his child for any longer than the agreed-upon two weekends per month (he was at least, it should be noted, a dutiful payer of child support). She was considering going back to school for nursing, but the single-parent-with-douchey-ex lifestyle made that tricky. She couldn't rely on her parents' assistance, as both of them had died within the last two years (father from alcoholism, mother from a heart attack). Also making her employment difficult was her 6-year probation sentence for "possession of an instrument of crime" (specifically, rolling papers – one of the most egregiously nebulous charges available to law enforcement). So at this point I realized that not only did I prevent the disastrous consequences of her having an accident, but I also prevented her from getting a DUI which would have further complicated her already unnecessarily complex life. Perhaps the most likely outcome for her situation, though, would have been her sitting alone, in the dark parking lot, underneath the freeway – also a scenario best avoided.
She insisted she had not been this drunk in a very long time, as she only drank "once in a blue moon." She seemed quite shamed by the situation. Her brother, a legitimate criminal miscreant on probation for terroristic threatening, had vanished during the evening's festivities and eventually did call her; we were already as far as Morgan by then so he was SOL on getting home. Lesson learned: don't go drinking in Little Rock if you live in Conway and haven't planned for someone reasonably sober to get you home.
Additional important tip for this sort of thing: get your passenger's address into your smart phone and map to it beforehand, just in case your passenger passes out. My fear early on was that I would be saddled with a sleeper. But she stayed coherent all the way back to her apartment in Conway, conveniently located close to the Hendrix campus so I didn't have to worry about navigating any unfamiliar streets at night. I helped her to the door and she gave me a hug. She was probably as bewildered as I was that somebody would lend such a big hand to a total stranger.
Another St. Patrick's Day, another year older, but for once I feel like I've actually grown a little. I'm generally a "no" person, so overcoming my instinct to leave things alone was a big step for me. I'm fairly certain I helped someone avoid a terrible fate, and an hourlong drive at 12 a.m. after a long day is a small price to pay for doing The Right Thing. Thanks, Saint Patrick, wherever you are.
Perfect Songs: "Slip Slidin' Away" by Paul Simon
Like so many songs of my early childhood in the late 1970s, "Slip Slidin' Away" became part of my pre-linguistic sensory experience. Instrumentally spare even for a Paul Simon recording, it nevertheless has the distinction of being a song I experience in my chest as some form of synaesthesia, of sound made into sensation. To a two-year old, lyrics are obviously irrelevant, so it's a testament to the magic of Paul Simon's voice and the distinctive "and three" percussion that the song makes an impression at all on someone whose cognitive abilities are limited.
It's tempting to interpret the tune as a lullaby, but even then I knew the song was not telling me that everything would be alright. I understood the words in the title at least, and I knew it meant loss of control, of being slowly moved in some unintended direction.
Released in late 1977 as a bonus track for Simon's Greatest Hits, Etc., the song went to #5 on the Billboard charts. It's one of the few situations I can think of where an unreleased song was appended to a hits collection and actually became a hit itself. It didn't make the cut onto Still Crazy After All These Years, so it seems as though Simon is saying "here's this thing I didn't want to tell you about." Maybe he wasn't sure it was good enough, or maybe he thought we wouldn't understand or be prepared for the message.
Because the song was encoded in my memory as a sensation rather than a song, I never took the time later in life to comprehend the lyrics. I absorbed it as I do most songs – music first, lyrics last, if at all. Only within the last few years did I get around to comprehending the verses. A lot of Paul Simon's tunes have a certain sadness laced with hope, but this one doesn't offer much in the way of consolation. It simply presents the world as it is – a man too much in love, a woman with lowered (realistic?) expectations from life, a father who doesn't explain himself, and then the final verse, the knock-down blow:
God only knows
God makes his plan
The information's unavailable
To the mortal man
We're working our jobs
Collect our pay
Believe we're gliding down the highway
When in fact we're slip slidin' away
It's a dark truth that we are, for the most part, not in control, much as we may think we are. Maybe it's just the timbre of The Paul Simon Voice that softens the punch, but the song manages not to be completely depressing; instead it transmits a feeling of being at peace with an uncertain universe. As children, our lullabies are either unreasonably rosy ("you make me happy when skies are grey") or strangely horrid ("the cradle will fall?" WTF, mom?), so "Slip Slidin' Away" might make a good middle ground. It's the kind of message children would benefit from hearing more often. Somehow I think it was beneficial for me.
UPDATE: I realized recently that the most likely definition of "Slip Slidin' Away" is death. I was reminded of a talk given by Thich Nhat Hanh (and adapted by Chroma Key into a piece called "When You Drive") wherein Han says, "we have the habit energy of wanting to arrive. That is why we want to go as quickly as possible…but we arrive at every moment…If we abandon the present moment, our final destination may be our death. You don't want to arrive there." So with that in mind, we really do think we're gliding down the highway when in fact we're just getting closer to death.
Ode to a Guitar Shop
Recently I was informed that an old acquaintance of mine had died. Fred was a salesguy at the now-defunct Sigler Music Center in Little Rock who made me a great deal on my trusty Fender Eric Johnson strat. I bought it at their going-out-of-business sale, which reminded me of all the great guitar shops in Central Arkansas that are no more: Boyd Pro Sound, Atomic Guitars, Stonehenge (I & II), Starr's Guitars, Music City, Maumelle Music. I thought it might be good if I wrote down a little about each of them while the memories are still relatively fresh.
Boyd Pro Sound. The oldest, the best. This was Little Rock's hometown music store for decades. In addition to guitars and band instruments it was the main repair shop and PA store. My history with the store is limited; I don't think I ever bought any guitars there, but I know that it was the hub for all the gigging musicians, church groups, and audio production people. I fondly recall impressing Mr. Boyd once with my guitar rendition of Aaron Copland's "Hoe Down." He was a traditional pianist of some renown and I got the feeling he had an uneasy relationship with the young guitar monkeys in his store.
The circumstances of the store's demise still seem strange to me – Mr. Boyd closed up shop to sell the space to a nearby church, then opened up a branch of Sigler Music Center a year or so later. Alas, the store opened at nearly the precise moment Guitar Center arrived, so it only lasted a few years.
Stonehenge. The place your metalhead cousin learned to shred. Or play "Smells Like Teen Spirit." There were two Stonehenges, one in North Little Rock and one in Little Rock down on Geyer Springs Road. Finding the latter location was initially a process of trial and error for me – I could never remember how to get there. But this was the store with the Ibanez and Jackson guitars. This was the Guitar Monkey Store. This was where I bought my first seven-string, a white Ibanez Universe that languished in the store apparently for years. I bought it around 1995 I think, and it was a 1990 model. Nobody knew what to do with a seven-string back then; Korn hadn't hit it big yet. A year later their rise to prominence unleashed a tidal wave of seven- and now eight-string guitars onto the market.
Atomic Guitars. My neighborhood shop. I can't tell you the many joys of a sunny day's walk of a few blocks from my apartment to Atomic Guitars. Johnny Adams always had the coolest retro/vintage gear, and not just the expensive stuff – he had weird cheap gear as well. I bought a red 70s Kay strat from him for something like $80 once. Good guitar. I gave it to a friend a few years later. I think I also got my Fender Deluxe amp there. Atomic was really the only store that had a funky vibe to it, and that's a tribute to Johnny's style and interests – it was his store. It took a few years before I realized how rare that is in this world. Here are some pics from my old photoblog from way back when. Atomic lives on virtually, so visit the website.
Starr's Guitars. The Money Store. David Starr moved his operation up to Colorado after a few years in Little Rock's River Market. It was the place to go if you wanted high-end, off-the-beaten path guitars like Godin, Brian Moore, or PRS. If you wanted a limited edition Turner Lindsay Buckingham model, he had one. Starr's was new when I moved to town around 1999, and David ran ads on KARN Newsradio, where I had my first "real" job, post-college. I remember some mornings the late great Bob Harrison would be on the air with his Hofner Beatle bass in hand, reading ad copy for Starr's during the morning show. Starr's also hosted guitar repair legend Tim Quatermous (I'm probably spelling that wrong), who probably worked on every one of my guitars at some point. After Starr's left, Tim moved over to Romco Drums before he passed away. And for awhile David ran a small music venue next door to the shop – I remember seeing some great shows there by folks like Ed Nicholson's Outside the Lines and Chapman Stick player Greg Howard.
Music Makers. The suburbs store. They had some good guitars but I don't have any real strong memories from here. I remember they had a cool Robin guitar for years that was always in the store but always beyond my price range or anyone else's interest.
Music City. The Pawn Shop. There was a Music City back behind the Brandon House building on 12th at University and I think it eventually became the Music City out in Sherwood, which was really just a pawn shop with a lot of guitars. A lot of awesome guitars; in fact this was probably my favorite store to venture out to because all their inventory was used gear, and used gear is just consistently more interesting to me than new gear. Lots of great 80s relics – I remember almost buying a Steve Stevens Washburn there once. I did buy a $300 Epiphone Joe Pass from them. They're in a new building in Sherwood by the freeway but every time I go by there, they're never open. I wonder what the deal is.
Maumelle Music & More. My store. I taught guitar here for a few years between 2000 & 2004. When I moved to Little Rock in 1999, I'd heard a music store had opened up in the bedroom suburb of Maumelle. I went to check it out – it had a big selection of CDs, some t-shirts and they were a dealer for Ibanez, Alvarez and Crate. After picking around on a guitar for a bit, I was asked by the manager, Mike, if I'd be interested in teaching lessons. It worked out really well for me, because my radio gig was part-time. I'd work at KARN from 9 to noon, then teach from 4 to 7. When I left radio, I was part time at Epoch Online before I eventually moved up to fulltime. I still keep up with some of those kids.
Romco Drums. The drum shop with some acoustic guitars. The fact that this store is able to stay open dealing mainly in percussion is impressive. I took jazz guitar lessons there briefly with Perry Israel.
Saied Music. The high school band store. Some decent guitars, but mainly this is the store for the brass and woodwinds.
There was a store up in Sherwood in the early 2000s run by Randy Boyd – anybody remember the name? I used to go up there every so often.
I suppose I should say a few words about what killed these shops. It would be easy to just say "Guitar Center," but the Internet and eBay are major factors as well. When any kid can try out a guitar at a store and then go buy it online for a lower price, that really hurts a store. It's not digital-music-killing-record-stores damage, but it's the 1 of a 1-2 punch. Punch 2 is Guitar Center, the Walmart of music stores. Any exclusive dealership contract a mom and pop store might have is effectively negated by Guitar Center's special arrangements with every company. Their corporate pyramid also contains the website/catalog behemoth Musician's Friend and several instrument companies like Fender (at the top of the pyramid? Mitt Romney's Bain Capital), so financially it's the Death Star of retail musical instrument stores. Only the small-town stores will survive (which is why I haven't mentioned Jacksonville Guitar, still going strong), at least until Guitar Center decides to go everywhere that Walmart goes, or Walmart decides to carry a wider array of musical instruments. Or Walmart eats Guitar Center.
It should be said, though, that music stores are only as good as the people who run them. It's really about people. A lot of sales guys in Little Rock had no place else to go but Guitar Center, so if I have a buddy at a Guitar Center, I'll still buy from him if he's got what I'm looking for (of course, given the choice, I will first order from GuitarSmiths in Harrison, not that I buy much gear brand new). I remember Little Rock's Guitar Center being fun in the early days – I'll never forget that time some kid was wailing on "Eruption" and Cody Short picked up the intercom and said "hey kid, can you play 'Eruption'"? Classic.
I'll miss the Saturdays I used to spend in Little Rock going from guitar store to guitar store, talking to guys like Fred, seeing what's new and what's on sale. It's something our culture will never get back, like retail record stores or cathedrals made by stonemasons. We gain convenience and low, low prices, but for everything we gain, we always lose something.
Top Tunes of 2011
I decided to do this year's list by album rather than by song. I had a surprisingly good year for albums in 2011.
Junip – Fields
By far my favorite album of the year. Junip is a new band from Sweden featuring José González, previously known for his several solo CDs of chilled-out semi-bossa-nova songsmithing. Transferred to a full band, González's songs feel like they've moved from black & white to color. The colors are still muted browns and greens, but that's as it should be. His songs have a sense of suspension to them, so the whole record makes for an immersive experience, great for long drives in the country or long walks in the city. I've found it to be one of those rare discs that even my mom likes, so I bought copies for the whole family for Christmas.
Buy Fields at Amazon.com.
Those Dancing Days – Daydreams and Nightmares
The hits keep coming from Sweden. I was sent the video for "Fuckarias" (terrible title given that the song contains no swearing), and as soon as the drums started, I was in love. The drummer is phenomenal. This is the first time an all-girl bland completely floored me. They have two full-length albums, and the songs have a good variety of style – 80s synth pop, post-punk/new-wave, R&B, heavy rock. One minute they're the Go-Go's, the next they're Sleater-Kinney, then OK Go. Yes, I have a crush on them. Shut up.
Buy Daydreams and Nightmares at Amazon.com.
Dennis Olivieri – Come to the Party
This is a discovery from 1968 I made via DJ Shadow and the good people at www.whosampled.com (his song "I Cry in the Morning" is the backing track for Shadow's "Six Days"). Dennis sits somewhere between Harry Nilsson and Tom Waits at the table of half-crazy songwriters (a table I imagine full of wine goblets, loose women, fine cheese and dead mice) and vocally he sounds like the younger brother of Blood Sweat & Tears' David Clayton-Thomas. His songs have moments of brilliance but they resist being tied down into one convenient song. Just when you think he's got a great pop tune, he takes some discursive left turn and you're in the weeds of weirdness. He's probably too sane for Captain Beefheart fans and too rambling to be enjoyed by pop fans. I need to find more of his stuff.
Buy Come to the Party on iTunes.
MAMA – Get Later
What can I say about Lenny Bryan? The Ho-Hum frontman still lives in a musical world of his own creation, and it's not a world I entirely understand – I can't trace the roots, I don't know where the borders are, or which direction is up. But when on "We Became Untouchable" he sings "I just realized I'm never gonna be a star," I'm plugged in, because every musician in their 30s needs to realize this at some point, so that's not only familiar ground but Important Stuff. This is music that can't be made by famous people; it's a perspective that cannot be represented by the music industry as we used to know it. And it is a message that is Necessary to so many. It might even beg for a sequel song that tells ambitious twentysomething rockers "99.9% of you will fail to become rock stars." And so the chorus of "You're a friend of mine / And you're the best kind / You're a drink of wine / You're a Valentine" serves as a nice tonic to that sad realization. Maybe it's a consolation prize to all the would-be rock stars to know that, despite their failure to become famous, they still have a lot of friends.
Buy Get Later at Amazon.com.
Keith Horn – Rock Scissors
I met Keith at Dweezilla camp last year, and had no idea at the time that he was a Mad Scientist Genius. He knows all the Steely Dan chords. Combine that with all the Frank Zappa rhythm changes and tortured melodies, and you've got a unique hybrid that satisfies the needs of a wide variety of music nerds. He's also a monster guitarist, not that I recall him revealing that to anyone at camp. So the guy is humble, too. Bastard.
Buy Rock Scissors at Amazon.com.
David Mead – Dudes
The title track makes a nice companion piece to Lenny's "We Became Untouchable." The opening line is "You've got bills and bouncing checks / Nothing's right and nothing's left to lose / But you got Dudes." It's a lesson from a guy who had two major-label albums and is still struggling to make a living with music, but who finds himself with the consolation of having a lot of friends. It should be noted that this album was financed by a Kickstarter campaign to which I was a hefty contributor (I got to visit the studio!), so it's good to have Dudes.
Buy Dudes at Amazon.com.
Parov Stelar – The Paris Swing Box EP
Finally someone is doing for old swing records what Moby did for old blues tunes. This is the first of two albums on this list that I found via a television commercial (Cosmopolitan Hotel of Las Vegas – by the way, why is one hotel in one city running national ads? Is that a first? How many guests can one hotel really take with nationwide exposure?), which I guess is the new MTV. Parov is really an Austrian DJ named Marcus Füreder, and not all of his stuff is as great as "Booty Swing" so kudos to the Madison Avenue wizard who put that tune in the commercial.
Buy The Paris Swing Box EP on iTunes.
The Asteroids Galaxy Tour – The Golden Age
Here's our other TV commercial song (for Heineken – thanks, Shazam app!) that harkens back to an earlier time and genre. A product of Denmark, TAGT may have one of the more unwieldy and confusing band names I've ever heard – how do they name their tours, The Asteroids Galaxy Tour American Tour? Great tunes, though.
Buy The Golden Age at Amazon.com.
T-Ride – Unreleased
This summer I came across several tunes from T-Ride's unreleased second album, via their guitarist Geoff Tyson. T-Ride was a Bay Area trio with devastating musical skills – three-part vocal harmonies and instrumental technique beyond belief. Geoff's guitar playing on "Serial Killer" is as close as I've heard metal come to jazz and still be a song without any real soloing. Like much T-Ride's material, the virtuosity came not in the form of guitar solos, just maddeningly difficult riffs and fills. How they sang and played that stuff I have no idea. Drop me a line if you want to hear the other tunes.
Tori Amos – Night of Hunters
Finally a curveball from Tori, who hasn't really thrown the world a curveball since 1998's From the Choirgirl Hotel. This album not only features a more classical/chamber music sound, but also an instrumental (see below)! Her daughter sings with her on several cuts, which would count as nepotistic self-indulgence from anyone but the citizen-queen of Planet Tori.
Buy Night of Hunters at Amazon.com.
Tedeschi Trucks Band – Revelator
Does anybody make greasy soul blues rock from the South anymore? I'm just glad this band exists.
Buy Revelator at Amazon.com.
Animals as Leaders – Weightless
Math rock, prog, jazz fusion and metal have finally converged. This trio led by guitarist Tosin Abasi is one of the only groups out there still pushing the boundaries of genre and technique. They are making the impossible possible with music that is as heavy as it is brainy. It would be easy to dismiss them as shred nerds if their rhythms weren't so relentlessly brutal and their compositions so statistically dense.
Buy Weightless at Amazon.com.
Honorable mentions:
Megadeth – Peace Sells…But Who's Buying? 25th Anniversary
I don't think any band in the genre of metal has ever combined ferocious intensity with such precision and madness as is exhibited on the live album that accompanies this special edition of Megadeth's classic. Guitarist Chris Poland and drummer Gar Samuelson were hopeless heroin addicts and Daves Mustaine and Ellefson were their usual messed up selves, but the band manages to be tight and loose at the same time. This is as close as the raw energy of punk ever made it to its magnetic opposite of rock guitar wizardry. Metallica might have been faster, Slayer might have been scarier, but Megadeth were the craziest. They were the mad ones.
Dream Theater – A Dramatic Turn of Events
They're back with a new drummer and an increased willingness to just go batshit crazy on guitar/keyboard unison lines. Welcome back, guys.
DJ Shadow – The Less You Know, The Better
I haven't yet warmed up to all of Shadow's new disc, but "Stay the Course" featuring Posdnuos and Talib Kweli is definitely the standout, along with "I Gotta Rokk" featuring a few samples from none other than Yngwie Malmsteen. Finally a convergence of hip-hop and metal I can get excited about.
This year I also discovered this really nice little George Harrison demo, a bonus cut from "Gone Troppo".
On a sad note, one of my all-time favorite bands pretty much called it quits this year, The Softlightes. Please go buy everything they ever did as The Softlightes and as The Incredible Moses Leroy.


text:
Court Interpretation of Indigenous Agreements: Database
The Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy (CEPMLP) – University of Dundee (Scotland)
From the database description:
This database has been compiled from over 200 cases and articles from courts/tribunals in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States of America. The decisions collated for the database are those that interpret or apply documents involving indigenous parties. The database records, for each decision:
- a brief summary of the decision (including URL where available);
- the details of the document(s) involving indigenous parties; and
- a summary of the court's/tribunal's engagement with that document.
The database's search function allows users to focus and find decisions and articles according to particular need. For example, if researching the relevance of fiduciary obligations in relation to indigenous agreements, the database allows quick collation of all materials relevant to that.


text:
Paclitaxel in Advanced Refractory Kaposi's Sarcoma (AIDS-KS): A Phase II Trial of Paclitaxel From Baker Norton Pharmaceuticals
|The safety and scientific validity of this study is the responsibility of the study sponsor and investigators. Listing a study does not mean it has been evaluated by the U.S. Federal Government. Read our disclaimer for details.
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00002189
Recruitment Status : Completed
First Posted : August 31, 2001
Last Update Posted : June 24, 2005
- Study Details
- Tabular View
- No Results Posted
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
|Condition or disease
|Sarcoma, Kaposi HIV Infections
|Drug: Paclitaxel
|Phase 2
|Study Type :
|Interventional (Clinical Trial)
|Primary Purpose:
|Official Title:
|Paclitaxel in Advanced Refractory Kaposi's Sarcoma (AIDS-KS): A Phase II Trial of Paclitaxel From Baker Norton Pharmaceuticals
Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study. To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contacts provided below. For general information, Learn About Clinical Studies.
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|18 Years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
|Sexes Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
Inclusion Criteria
Patients must have:
- Microscopically confirmed diagnosis of KS associated with HIV for which systematic therapy is medically indicated by the presence of at least one of the following:
A. >= 25 mucocutaneous (mouth or skin) lesions. B. Symptomatic visceral involvement. C. Symptomatic lymphedema (pain).
- Minimum of 5 clearly measurably cutaneous lesions by physical exam or measurable disease by X-ray, CT or MRI.
- Failed at least one systemic chemotherapy regimen.
Exclusion Criteria
Co-existing Condition:
Patients with the following conditions and symptoms are excluded:
- Less than 2 weeks since major surgery.
- Serious uncontrolled infection. NOTE:
- Must be ruled out by thorough work-up in patients with unexplained fevers, night sweats, or involuntary weight loss of more than 10% normal weight.
- Leukopenia.
- Thrombocytopenia.
Patients with the following prior conditions are excluded:
- History of angina or myocardial infarction within the past 6 months.
- Second degree or third degree atrioventricular block without a pacemaker.
- Congestive heart failure (poorly controlled).
- History of prior malignancy except:
Completely excised in situ, carcinoma of the cervix or nonmelanomatous skin cancer.
Curatively treated other malignancy with no evidence of disease for at least 5 years.
Prior Medication:
Prior taxane therapy.
- At least one systemic chemotherapy regimen that failed to maintain significant benefit. NOTE:
- Intralesional chemotherapy regimens are not considered as prior chemotherapy.
- At least 2 weeks since last dose of prior systemic chemotherapy.
To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contact information provided by the sponsor.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier (NCT number): NCT00002189
|United States, Massachusetts
|Massachusetts Gen Hosp / AIDS Oncology Research
|Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02114
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|Other Study ID Numbers:
|First Posted:
|August 31, 2001 Key Record Dates
|Last Update Posted:
|June 24, 2005
|Last Verified:
|June 1998
Sarcoma, Kaposi
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
Treatment Outcome
Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic
Sarcoma, Kaposi
Neoplasms, Connective and Soft Tissue
Neoplasms by Histologic Type
Virus Diseases
Herpesviridae Infections
DNA Virus Infections
Neoplasms, Vascular Tissue
Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic
Antineoplastic Agents
Tubulin Modulators
Antimitotic Agents
Mitosis Modulators
Molecular Mechanisms of Pharmacological Action


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Xcelera is an integrated multi-modality image management system for cardiovascular information. It improves clinical workflow by providing a single access point for advanced clinical applications, multi-modality images, and reports.
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By clicking on the link, you will be leaving the official Royal Philips Healthcare ("Philips") website. Any links to third-party websites that may appear on this site are provided only for your convenience and in no way represent any affiliation or endorsement of the information provided on those linked websites. Philips makes no representations or warranties of any kind with regard to any third-party websites or the information contained therein.
Patient-centric system puts patient data in one place
Integrated information can improve efficiency
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Manny Pacquiao Hand Signed Red Boxing Glove 'MANNY PACQUIAO' Deluxe Classic Dome Frame
- Description
Manny Pacquiao Hand Signed Red Boxing Glove 'MANNY PACQUIAO' Deluxe Classic Dome Frame. The Glove features a very clear signature. The Glove was personally hand-signed by Manny at a Private Signing conducted by one of AAA Sports Memorabilia's most Trusted Partners. This item Comes with Full Certificate of Authenticity and Photo Proof.
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Our Smart Solutions are technological innovations that delight smart consumers with
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Whether you need to update the tub, the shower, or both, Delta has bathroom tub and shower fixtures for every preference. Select from the features below to see available products.


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Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW) highlighted its industry-leading expertise at the 60th IWCS International Cable • Connectivity Symposium in Charlotte, N.C., through technical presentations, awards, and an executive panel discussion. The four-day symposium runs through Wednesday and is approximately an hour's drive from Corning Optical Communications' headquarters in Hickory, N.C.
On Monday, the following Corning engineers, scientists and leaders were honored for award-winning papers, presentations and leadership:
- Robert Elkins, Jeff Danley and Dr. Kevin Sparks from Corning Optical Communications; Alexey Amosov and Petr Gorelchenko from Corning Scientific Center; and Dr. Andrey Kobyakov from Corning Optical Communications, were presented The Jack Spergel Memorial Award for Outstanding Technical Paper for the "Compensating for Fiber Undercut in Physical Contact Optical Connectors."
- Curtis Queen, Dave Chiasson and Mark Paap of Corning Optical Communications were presented the Outstanding Poster Paper for "Inkjet Printing for Outdoor Cable Designs."
- Robert Elkins of Corning Optical Communications was given the Kitts-Kingsley Award for Best Presentation for "Compensating for Fiber Undercut in Physical Contact Optical Connectors."
- Dr. Peter Bark and John Sicotte, of Corning, were honored as IWCS leaders of the past during the Plenary Session Luncheon. Dr. Bark was a long-standing symposium committee member and one of the original members of the IWCS Committee. He served from 1986 to 2002, and finished as a member of the IWCS Board of Directors. Sicotte served on the IWCS Committee from 1995 to 2009, on the IWCS Board of Directors from 2000 to 2009 and was board chairman from 2006 to 2009.
Immediately before the luncheon, Clark Kinlin, CEO and president of Corning Optical Communications, joined an executive panel that explored the demand for bandwidth and infrastructure growth, with a focus on the wireless industry.
In addition to multiple paper and poster presentations, Corning led the following technical seminars at the symposium:
- On Sunday, Dave Seddon, senior engineering associate for Corning Optical Communications, presented "Fundamentals of Optical Fibers and Fiber Optic Cable Design and Application."
- On Monday, Dr. Scott Bickham, senior development associate for Corning Optical Fiber, presented "Bend-resistant Single-mode and Multimode Fibers."
- Also Monday, David Kozischek, market manager, Data Centers for Corning Optical Communications, presented "Data Center Design – Preparing the Cable Infrastructure for 40G and 100G Migrations and Other Topics of Electronics and Testing."
About Corning Incorporated
Corning Incorporated (www.corning.com) is the world leader in specialty glass and ceramics. Drawing on more than 160 years of materials science and process engineering knowledge, Corning creates and makes keystone components that enable high-technology systems for consumer electronics, mobile emissions control, telecommunications and life sciences. Our products include glass substrates for LCD televisions, computer monitors and laptops; ceramic substrates and filters for mobile emission control systems; optical fiber, cable, hardware & equipment for telecommunications networks; optical biosensors for drug discovery; and other advanced optics and specialty glass solutions for a number of industries including semiconductor, aerospace, defense, astronomy and metrology.


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View all calendars is the default. Choose Select a Calendar to view a specific calendar.Select the arrows on either side of the current month to change the month.
September 24, 2019, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM @ Horace City Hall
Horace Planning and Zoning board meets to review active zoning and build requests. Also to update city planning standards.


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Tongu Mama over at Our Little Tonginator blogged today about a 'date' she and her husband had. It got me to thinking. Kevin and I often use our date time for dinner and then something exciting like grocery shopping.
I am hoping that all 10 of you who read this blog, might have some suggestions for 'date nights.' We are looking for something relatively inexpensive. Just because that is where we are in life. And we don't even have a stock portfolio to have one crash!
I look forward to your thoughts!
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Suggestions, please.....
Tongu Mama over at Our Little Tonginator blogged today about a 'date' she and her husband had. It got me to thinking. Kevin and I often use our date time for dinner and then something exciting like grocery shopping.
Posted by Mom to 5...Daughter of the King at 7:29 AM 13 comments Links to this post
Labels: date night, suggestions
Monday, September 29, 2008
In The Excitement That is My Life
I am going to the post office and the grocery today! Aren't you jealous??
Posted by Mom to 5...Daughter of the King at 7:40 AM 7 comments Links to this post
Labels: Daily life
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Some days
it's just not much fun being the mom!
Posted by Mom to 5...Daughter of the King at 7:26 PM 1 comments Links to this post
Labels: family life
Thursday, September 25, 2008
I Love Jesus
Need a laugh today? Check this out! http://www.green-grass-grows.com/2008/09/just-for-laughs.html
Thanks for sharing this, Kate!
Posted by Mom to 5...Daughter of the King at 3:29 PM 4 comments Links to this post
Labels: laugh
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Moments That Make It All Worth It....Grace
This year, we've been letting Gracie stay up later than her siblings. A whole half an hour. (To listen to Olivia you would think it was HOURS....) It has afforded us great time to just talk to her, by herself. No one else tells us what she meant to say, or interrupts or anything!
Last night we were watching a show together. A reality weight loss show that I generally think is pretty child safe. But a couple of the contestant were swearing. A lot. It lead to a discussion about not always needing to use language others use.
I mentioned that, as she is getting older, she is going to hear a lot more inappropriate language from her friends. But that doesn't mean she has to use it.
And my baby girl looked at me and said, "I know, Mom. I am never going to talk like that. It is not appropriate and God doesn't like it."
I love that girl!!
Posted by Mom to 5...Daughter of the King at 8:48 AM 3 comments Links to this post
Monday, September 22, 2008
Not Fair!!
I don't mind being 41, most of the time. Actually I kind of like it. But there's one thing that really, on a daily basis, works my nerves!!
And I have to "face" it twice, every day! And that would be all of the things I have to do to take care of my face!!
Let's start with washing. I have to go through a three step regimen. Facial scrub, clarifier, repairing lotion. I use Pro@ctive. Yes, I am 41 and still fighting blemishes. Actually they are worse than they have ever been. For me, this is the only product that works. After I am done with that, I have to do a spot treatment right on my 'problem areas.'
THEN I apply a Banishing Cream. Why? Because in the unfairness that is middle age, along with my blemishes (I hate the word zits) I have age spots!!!! Where is the fairness in that??? Blemishes AND age spots!?!
THEN I have to apply sunscreen to prevent further age spots. I think, when I am done, I must have a quarter of an inch of products on my face! Probably clogging my pores and causing further issues........
Have I mentioned how unfair this is??? Have I mentioned that I am the only one who seems to notice the difference??
Posted by Mom to 5...Daughter of the King at 7:56 AM 7 comments Links to this post
Labels: Life in Gerneral, Not Fair
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Oh, Charis
This afternoon, shortly before dinner, Charis and Josiah were wrestling, as usual. They do this regularly. Start on the couch, fall off the couch, someone yells because they fall off of the couch. The yeller then jumps onto the pusher and the whole thing starts again on the floor. At some point, the event might move back onto the couch. It's pretty interesting to watch because Charis is a tiny thing. She finally broke the 30 pound mark a couple of weeks ago. She's dark haired, dark eyed, dark completed, lean and strong. Her favorite wrestling partner is Josiah. He is thirteen weeks older than she is. He is at least ten pounds heavier, blond, blue eyed, fair skinned. A stout little man. It's really quite a picture. I guess I should take one sometime.
Right after they finished wrestling, I don't really remember who won or who was angry. But Charis started to gag as if she was going to be sick. Kevin rushed her to the bathroom. It only took me a couple of seconds to realize that she had....wait for it.....swallowed a LEGO!!!!! It was stuck in her throat, but she could still breathe.
I called the pediatrician who said we needed to take her into Urgent Care. But, as we were talking, Charis told Kevin that the Lego was in her tummy. It had shifted through her esophagus and into her stomach. That's the good news. My baby was no longer in pain. (Although she still wanted to go to Urgent Care because she had so much fun there two weeks ago when she had a double ear infection.)
The bad news? Now we have to watch her for the next few days for sign of an obstruction....
Oh, Charis......
And I wonder why my head hurts all of the time.
Posted by Mom to 5...Daughter of the King at 7:42 PM 12 comments Links to this post
Labels: charis, swallowing toys
Thursday, September 18, 2008
It's a Beautiful Day!!
I'll bet U2 is running through your head now, isn't it? Maybe I'll add one of those music thingamajigs to my blog.
Anyway, my kids are back in school, PBS is back. It was sunny and in the upper 70s today. I can't ask for much more.
Well, maybe for my headaches to clear up. They have been bad, but I think it is because I can no longer 'stress eat.' The lap band makes it impossible! Not such a bad thing.
Posted by Mom to 5...Daughter of the King at 7:56 PM 3 comments Links to this post
Labels: Life Style Changes. lap band, no school, PBS
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Posted by Mom to 5...Daughter of the King at 6:41 AM 3 comments Links to this post
Labels: family life, Hurricane, no school, puzzles
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Affects of a Hurricane
First of all, let me say, I NEVER EVER in my whole live long life, expected my children, in southern Ohio, to have 2 days off of school due to a hurricane!! And everything here still seems so normal! We never lost power, just internet and phone. The internet is back......my link to adults!!
My hubby, who is also off of school, is working at the church....which has no power....sure, he's working....I think he is just escaping the children. Sigh....wish I had a dark, cold, old church to hide out in!
Oh, but I haven't mentioned the worst thing. PBS is GONE!!!!!!!!!!! I can only imagine that the station has yet to regain power. My children are starting to go into withdraw. No Arthur, no Clifford, no Sid the Science Kid! (okay they are missing Caillou, but I am not. We refer to him as Cai-yuck around here!) No, in answer to Nanny's questions, no shakes....yet., but they are starting to perspire a bit.
Arthur, where are you???? I miss you!!!!
Posted by Mom to 5...Daughter of the King at 9:42 AM 3 comments Links to this post
Monday, September 15, 2008
Guess what this is?
Posted by Mom to 5...Daughter of the King at 7:41 PM 4 comments Links to this post
Labels: Blackout
Friday, September 12, 2008
Lapband update
Okay, I only lost 1/2 a pound this week. But that is something I was expecting. I was hungry starting about Tuesday!
I am at the point that they are trying to adjust my band so that it works best for me. Today, the nurse put in 2 more cc's. So there are 5 cc's in my 10 cc band. My weight loss total is 15 lbs. The equivalent to 60 sticks of butter. Not too bad.
This week I went to a support group meeting for people banded through my dr's office. Lots of great people and good information!
Posted by Mom to 5...Daughter of the King at 5:17 PM 5 comments Links to this post
Labels: lap band, weight loss
It's Friday!
Things I've learned this week:
* Olivia still hates mornings.
*Risi reacts better when you get on her level and don't yell
*It kind of breaks your heart when a boy comes to the door for your daughter for the first time (Grace.) Now, I admit, he wanted to challenge her to bike race, but still...she's only 9!!
*There is nothing quite as loud as a three year in the middle of a major fit.
*Preschool tires kids out!
*When a church is on the brink of revival, Satan gets busy.
Okay. Most of this I already knew, but lots of this was reinforced. Maybe I'll learn the lessons THIS time!
Posted by Mom to 5...Daughter of the King at 5:12 PM 1 comments Links to this post
Labels: family life
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Words That Cut to a Mother's Heart
Posted by Mom to 5...Daughter of the King at 8:27 AM 11 comments Links to this post
Labels: Olivia
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Weight loss update
Minor miracle, my dr.'s scale weighs me lighter than my scale!! So, I am officially down 14 pounds!!!! The fill was not a big deal. Just a prick. I have 3cc of fluid in a band that holds up to 10cc. I go back next week. I'll try to keep the updates to once weekly so as not to bore you all!!
Posted by Mom to 5...Daughter of the King at 12:03 PM 8 comments Links to this post
Labels: lap band, weight loss
Friday, September 5, 2008
Lap Band, Fills, and Real People and Headaches
Several of you have asked about the whole lap band experience so far. Thus far, not much has happened except healing. I spent a week eating only liquids. Then 2 weeks on mushies. Food with the consistency of refried beans. For the past week and a half I have been on solid food. My band is empty right now. Which means my stomach is pretty much back to normal. I can eat what I could eat before the surgery. This afternoon I have my first "fill" where saline is put into the band through a port. A needle is inserted into port and saline is injected. It goes through a line into the band. It will probably take 2 or 3 fills to find the spot where I am consistently losing weight. Will keep you updated. So far I am down 10 pounds.
This week the kids have been out of the house a lot more because of the whole school thing. Yesterday, I caught myself, a couple of times, reminding my kids that there were "real people" around us. Just a general reminder that they were not the only people on the planet and to be aware of others around them. This is usually given when they are running through groups of people that we don't know.
Last night I was on the phone with a dear friend who lives in Maine. His kids have just entered middle school and high school this year. He and his wife are the same age as Kevin and I. As we were trying to talk, 4 of my kiddos were running around the table screaming while Grace sat at the table trying to do her homework. Her solution to this? To alternately yell at them to stop and at me to stop them. Never mind that she has a homework desk upstairs in the quiet with a lock on the door so she can do her work without distraction.
Have I mentioned how much I love these 'unreal people' or how much they make me yell and laugh at the same time??
In case you are wondering what "unreal people" look like, check out the following:
Oh, and yesterday's headache, named Headache Gustav by my sister, is still hanging in but is more a tropical storm that the level three hurricane it was yesterday
Posted by Mom to 5...Daughter of the King at 8:20 AM 3 comments Links to this post
Labels: family life, headache, lap band, weight loss
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Posted by Mom to 5...Daughter of the King at 6:54 AM 2 comments Links to this post
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Check this out. all you moms out there!
Posted by Mom to 5...Daughter of the King at 2:43 PM 1 comments Links to this post
First Day of Preschool
Posted by Mom to 5...Daughter of the King at 11:21 AM 5 comments Links to this post